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POLITICO 44

He might host two of the biggest D.C. parties every year, but Jim Courtovich doesn’t fancy himself a social type.

“Being social and having a good time are two different things,” said Courtovich, 44, managing partner at Kearsarge Global Advisors and Sphere Consulting.

Fair enough. But one thing is certain: He’s definitely mastered the “good time” part — just ask any of the District scenesters lucky enough to be invited to his Gaucho barbecue (held each year in May) or Gaucho Christmas or both.

At the gatherings, White House officials mix and mingle with familiar-faced reporters, lobbyists — and even the guy who has done some woodwork around Courtovich’s Kalorama home. But no one is doing business. It’s pure fun.

“If you have to work all the time, and everything in Washington is so overbearing in terms of networking, I thought it would be fun to have a party focused on friends, food and drink,” he said. “You’d be hard pressed to find anyone working it.”

The idea for the now-famous event started six or seven years ago, when Courtovich was having Sunday brunch in Georgetown with the ambassador of Argentina. Courtovich, an avid home chef, invited over the ambassador and some of his colleagues for barbecue. “It was just an impromptu thing,” he recalled. Later that day, after the consultant sent out a round of text messages, more than 75 people filled his backyard and the downstairs of his home.

Building on the success of his first big grilling gathering, the Boston native hosted the first-ever Gaucho barbecue — complete with formal paper invites featuring the now famous bull. (Courtovich can’t remember the origin of the party’s name, only that it involved “too much wine” and that gauchos come from Argentina.)

Years later, the party lives up to the hype. Guests flock to the table of catered lobster mac and cheese, roast beef, sausage, orzo and more. And before they can even make a dent in that bounty, more food appears. A guest favorite? The ice cream sandwiches at midnight.

But unlike some hosts who try to pad their guest lists with random acquaintances and perfect strangers, Courtovich prefers smaller gatherings. The number of invitees shrinks every year, he said.

“You wanna have all your friends there,” he said. “You don’t want it to turn into some Washington thing with a photo wall.”

At one of the gatherings two years ago, about 280 people filed into Courtovich’s home. He remembers not being able to walk through the backyard. (Guests, of course, just remember this as a great party.)

“It’s all about how many people you can invite without turning the backyard into Grand Central Station,” he said. “I don’t think anybody expects to be invited every year.”

So what’s next for the host? Since he travels about a week each month to London, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, will he be taking his hosting skills overseas?

Andrew Breitbart is a malicious liar who has twice created misleading videos to drive a patently false narrative into the mainstream media via FOX news. Can his dishonesty be so inconsequential that he is viewed as a counterpart to Arianna Huffington whose website features real events, albeit with a liberal bias? Have conservative lies and distortions (NAACP racists, 'Death panels', 'Death tax', lower taxes and decrease the deficit - you get my drift) become a part of our political narrative because they are accepted by a gullible press and foisted upon an unfortunately gullible public? The answer, unfortunately, is yes.

Politico does no investigation. It regurgitates anything it thinks will make a headline and get a mention of the website. Does being the first with a damaging lie make you media superstars? No, it makes you irresponsible yellow journalists.

Andrew Breitbart is a malicious liar who has twice created misleading videos to drive a patently false narrative into the mainstream media via FOX news. Can his dishonesty be so inconsequential that he is viewed as a counterpart to Arianna Huffington whose website features real events, albeit with a liberal bias? Have conservative lies and distortions (NAACP racists, 'Death panels', 'Death tax', lower taxes and decrease the deficit - you get my drift) become a part of our political narrative because they are accepted by a gullible press and foisted upon an unfortunately gullible public? The answer, unfortunately, is yes.

Politico does no investigation. It regurgitates anything it thinks will make a headline and get a mention of the website. Does being the first with a damaging lie make you media superstars? No, it makes you irresponsible yellow journalists.

What you talkin about, TeamPOLITICO? Andrew Breibart is dead in the water. His KARMA has finally caught up with him. NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE will ever take him seriously again. I would say he is dirt, but that would be insulting the earth.